Friday, June 5, 2009

The Mystery of Flight 447

I would myself consider it the height of hubris to exploit an incredible tragedy to stress a paranormal explanation for a horrible accident.

Please believe me I do not wish to do that in this writing.

When word first broke of the disappearance of flight 447 Monday morning here in the United States I had some strange misgivings about the information. Of course there were the usually feelings of empathetic sorrow for those who might be lost and their families, but there was something else.

However, I felt something else was at work here,for my senses that I have long trust told me that there was something just not right about this terrible loss.

As the story expanded this week and we learned about the automatic transmissions that reported strange electrical malfunctions, I reflected upon the reports of Gremlins, the evil impish creatures reported by World War 2 pilots that caused malevolent mechanical maelstrom on Allied planes during the war years. Most aeronautical pundits reporting for the various news channels were at a quandary as to how such a massive electrical malfunction could have occurred. To me it seemed like horrible omen that pointed to the malicious entities at work.

Then the reports of the severity of the storm through which the plane desperately tried to make its way through came to light. Previously we had been told it was a heavy storm but nothing out of the ordinary, but soon reports that it was some mega storm began to swirl around the news hubs of the internet. Could lightning have brought it down, or severe wind turbulence? The verbiage rattled about by the various talking heads of those days in early June 2009 brought vivid images to my Fortean biased mind. I was hearkenedback to the 70’s when such storms around the Bahamas were signposts of a possible dimensional vortex through which many planes and sailing vessels had vanished through the Bermuda Triangle. It made one think of the television show “Lost” brought to life.

But then by mid week we all heard the news that wreckage had indeed been found in the jet’s supposed flight path. At times I heard that various parts of the plane were found in scattered debris fields around the area and the recovered parts included seats, mechanical parts and an obvious oil slick. Hope in Fortean possibilities faded as the terrifyingly horrible but mundane fate of all those 228 passengers was imagined in our collective minds. We think of the young families, the children and the flight crew hopelessly being thrown about to their doom. Without hope and completely out of control they were careening down to the dark embrace of the deep Atlantic Ocean never to be seen again.

Then as of the writing of this article (Friday June 5th) we find out that what the host of officials had thought was wreckage found in the water in the flight path of that doomed plane was nothing more than discarded material from passing ships.

So after a major scouring of the area by thousands from various nations we have yet to find anything concerning the fate of Air France flight 447.

And what is more disturbing, the blame at the time of this writing is drifting toward terrorism. Some terrorist organization blew the plane out of the sky.

Really?

I thought terrorists conducted their dastardly deeds to strike terror into the heart of those who may be potential victims, demoralizing a designated populace.

Thus the name terrorist.

But the quintessential characteristic of a terrorist act is either the warning or boastful claim of such an act.

So far there has been no publicized claim for the incident. Which would be an oddity indeed it the loss of Air France 447 was due to a terrorist act.

And then we come back to the reports of the electrical failure of the plane midair. There were automated messages received from the doomed plane that do point to a catastrophic electrical failure.

At 11pm on the night of May 31stthe pilot of flight 447 signaled that he was flying through a large and ominously dark mass of black cumulonimbus clouds.

Within ten minutes the automatic pilot had disengaged and stabilizing controls for the plane were damaged. The core computer system switched to emergency battery power, indicating the main power had shut down aboard the plane. The emergency warning system was heard, which indicated the flight system had been compromised to such a level that they could not ensure any countermeasures that would ensure the plane’s safety through the storm.

Next within thirteen minutes of the initial contact with the dark massive clouds over the Atlantic the automatic messages reported that there was a cascading failure of all controls that monitored every aspect of the plane's physical location on our earthly plane- speed, altitude and direction. The flight crew had lost control of the main flight computer, they were flying blind in the hand of fate and even the wing spoiler control had failed as well.

Just 14 minutes after entering those ominous dark clouds over the deep Atlantic that stormy night of May 31st 2009 flight 447 sent out one last automatic message that its electrical system had experienced complete electrical failure and the cabin pressure had been compromised.

Such is the fate of Air France Flight 447 as we now know it.

What was its fate?

That is complete conjecture.

Complete electrical failure in a thunderstorm? There were other planes that endured that very same storm that night, they all found their destination. We send storms into the eyes of hurricanes just to gather data.

Was it the airspeed as others would claim, thus creating a fatal spiral? Then what about the automatic messages from the plane? They were of an electrical cascade failure, something which modern planes should have no problem with even in the most violent storms.

What happened to Air France Flight 447 during 11:00-11:14PM on May 31st 2009?

Were they victims of diabolical entities called Gremlins by our brave air warriors of WW2?

Were they whisked away to another dimension ala the Bermuda triangle and a temporal or special rift?

Or was it a simple tragic accident that ended the life of 228 innocent passengers of that Air France Jet?

Let’s pray for the families that lost their loved ones during the impact of this horrible incident, including the innocent children such as 11 year old Alexander Bjoroy who was returning to school in Great Britain after visiting his parents and sister in Rio de Janeiro. Our hearts go out to them. To the Family: Words cannot express the grief you surely endure. I myself cannot imagine the unanswered questions you must face. To just lose a child to the unexplained and no one has any real answers in our modern era…I cannot comprehend your grief. You have our prayers.

One day we all shall know what happened during those 14 minutes on May 31st, 2009 just off the coast of Brazil. Until then we are awash with more questions than answers.

19 comments:

Pastor Swope, like you, I also had an immediate impression that this was no ordinary disaster. Personally, I don't think we'll ever know what happened to it. I suspect we'll get a story, mostly conjecture based on information that nobody can independently corroborate, i.e. the government's version of events based on data they won't share with anyone.

One aspect of this story really bothers me. I read this, and I can't remember where, but it said that the wife of one of the victims, as soon as she heard about it, called her husband's cell phone and got nothing. But the next day, the phone rang, though no one answered. If the phone is ringing, that means it's not in the ocean.

It's like the dog that didn't bark in the night.

I'm also bothered by all this information coming out about the storm. If they have radar data about the storm, why don't they have radar data about the plane. If there were other planes in the area, as I have read, their radars should have made a record of whatever happened. There should be no question about where this plane went down.

I was about to talk about the woman and the phone constantly ringing. You beat me to it, Jeffery Wascot Conspiracy-Monger. Drats. :)BTW, I love the name. Cool beans.

Anyway, Swope---

Thankfully you are not the only one shaking their heads in disbelief at the sheer mystery and weirdness of this.

AboveTopSecret.Com is devoting some threads to this and the speculation is running rampant.

Another weird item from this is the fact that the French said that the wreckage found was from the plane; then the Brazilian Air Force comes out the very next day and says it is NOT.

Plus the passenger manifest list has never been fully made public. Most of the names are there, but not all. So far as I know.

Could it be that somebody on the plane needed to be "silenced?" I agree we'll probably never know.

I tend to believe the Brazilian Air Force more than the French government. The Air Force don't have any political clout to lose.

I smell cover-up. But unfortunately, it is a "cover-up" that is largely being ignored by the media. They've already moved on and refused to ask questions. The official party line has been adopted. Like always. So I agree---maybe one day we'll know. But not now.

My mind was traveling the same path as yours. When I first heard of the disappearance I asked my son, who was in the room longer than I, "Were they over the Bermuda Triangle?" He answered that they weren't- then I added, "Hmmm, Gremlins?" Some day we all may find out.

I see the aircraft suffer a portside flash and separation of the wing folding up several feet off the fuselage. The craft immediately rolled portside and disintergrated. The craft entered an electical anomaly affecting the internal systems structure and something occured in the portside landing wheel well assembly.

Being that bodies are being found from said flight, I think it's safe to say this was a good old-fashioned plane crash, most likely due to the bad weather. No cover-ups, nothing mysterious, no over-reacting and creating magical reasons for said crash. Might want to try waiting a bit before reacting there, Swope.

I sat on my comments of this incident all week. I only made a passing reference to it being 'Lost'. That there seems to be some mysterious and Fortean happening in this horrible accident has yet to be determined. However there are certain signposts that are certain happenings in this incident that are hallmarks of the odd and bizarre.

I do not think I jumped the gun. I think as the talking heads come up with more and more odd speculation (A meteor?) it points to a mysterious circumstance indeed.

Which if you read the article is what my point was from the beginning.

The possibility of a vortex ala the Bermuda triangle only comprised 1/2 a paragraph.

Based on some of the news released after the original post, it looks as though the Airbus 330 had some engineering weaknesses, including excessive reliance upon its computer systems, that could have contributed to the crash.

There was a similar near-disaster on a Quantas Airbus 330 in October 2008, in which the plane took an unexpected dive of 650 feet until the pilots got control away from the computer.

This suggests that the combination of the storm and the computer problems created problems that separately wouldn't have necessarily led to the plane crashing, but together did.

It also seems likely, and I hope it was, that the plane was sheared apart quickly, which would have killed those aboard within moments, either from fatal whiplash or suffocation.

WHAT ISNT ADDING UP IS THE FACT THAT THE PLANE COULDNT BE FOUND. ALL LIFERAFTS AS FAR AS I KNOW CARRY A BEACON ,WHICH ACTIVATES ON CONTACT WITH WATER IMMERSION AND STARTS TO TRANSMIT A HOMING SIGNAL WHICH CAN BE PICKED UP INSTANTLY BY SEARCH CRAFT. IN THIS DAY AND AGE ARE WE TO BELIEVE THAT THIS PLANE DIDNT HAVE ANY FORM OF RADAR TRANSMITTING BEACONS ONBOARD . I THINK IT BEGGARS BELIEF.

Is there away I can contact you without being on a public forum? I, as a Christian, have many questions concerning the Bible and "ghosts". From past experience I believe in spirits, but the Bible seems to say we aren't to "seek out spirits".

My immediate thoughts went to the South Atlantic Anomaly, a region of intensifying radiation located directly off the coast of Brazil. It is growing at an alarming rate in size and in dire implications. The anomaly "allows cosmic rays and charged particles to reach lower into the atmosphere and interefere with communication with satellites and aircraft...its geologic origins is unknown." You can see a map of the South Atlantic Anomaly at http://www.astro.psu.edu/~niel/astro485/lectures/lecture09-overhead02.jpg (also the source of the quoted text above).

While not paranormal, the Anomaly is often cited as proof of an impending geomagnetic reversal or "pole shift," as earth changes proponents refer to it...

Although it's unlikely TPTB (The Powers That Be) will reveal the Anomaly as the cause of Flight 447's oddly cascading power failures I would be willing to bet at this juncture that it certainly didn't help the plane battle the vicious thunderstorm (which itself may have been increased in intensity by the Anomaly!)

Of curious note - on November 12, 2001, an American Airlines plane crashed into a residential neighborhood in New York.

That airplane was an Airbus 300. If you recall, it's tail fin broke off in flight, due to "turbulence" caused by the plane that took off just before it. After the tail fin broke off, both engines tore off as well, and the plane went down, killing all aboard and five people on the ground.

I never bought the official explanation. As has been said many times before, these planes are built to withstand a tremendous pounding, yet a little buffeting and this thing flew to pieces. They blamed it on the pilots' overreaction, which is just to convenient, considering they are no longer here to defend themselves. I find it difficult to believe that a pilot could jerk the controls hard enough to rip the tail fin off. But we'll never really know what happened on that flight, either.

As for the bodies, they were found45 kms away from the last reported position. The condition of the bodies has been withheld to spare the families. A conspiratorial sort like myself might wonder if they are withholding information because there are airplane parts fused with the flesh. But that would be irresponsible speculation.

When we're being directed to all kinds of possible problems -- flying too slow, flying too fast, weather, meteors -- everything but faulty construction, I have to suspect that the real gremlins never left the ground.

Man, I followed that the dark truth link, and was completely in the story. Damn exciting. The latest post talks about a friend of him who's gone missing . Somewhere on his way to Leh, India. And the guy is asking for help find it. Soundss like an online game . This looks interesting. M already hooked on.

The Air France Flight 447 (Airbus A330) crash investigation will go on for another one and one half years. This is according to the French Investigation Director. The BEA has published a 72 page interim report on the investigation.

An Exorcist's Field Guide

About The Paranormal Pastor

is a Writer and has been a Christian Minister for more than 25 years in both Mainline and Evangelical Denominations. He holds a B.A. in Biblical Literature from Nyack College and an M.Div. In Pastoral Ministry with an emphasis on Pastoral Counseling from Alliance Theological Seminary. He has served as a short term Missionary to Burkina Faso, and has Ministered to the homeless in New York City's Hell's Kitchen. He is currently the Pastor of St.Paul's United Church of Christ in Erie, Pennsylvania.
He is also a freelance journalist for Examiner.com, has a column in the Tri-State Senior News and has also written for Fate Magazine.
As a Seminary trained exorcist he has done consulting work with various paranormal investigators and television productions in the United States as well as investigators and writers across the globe